Funds Transfer & Settlement

The Reserve Banks offer automated funds transfer and settlement services to financial institutions and others with a master account at the Fed.

To foster the integrity, efficiency, and accessibility of U.S. wholesale payments and settlement systems, the Federal Reserve System offers three types of automated funds transfer and settlement services. Once posted or acknowledged, transactions processed through these services are final and irrevocable:

Fedwire Funds Service is used by financial institutions and others with a Reserve Bank account to transfer funds, generally large-value, time-critical payments. It is the world's largest high-speed electronic payment system.

Fedwire Securities Service is used by financial institutions and others with a Reserve Bank account to hold, maintain, and transfer securities issued by the U.S. Treasury Department and other federal agencies, government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae, and certain international organizations such as the World Bank.

National Settlement Service is used by participants in private-sector clearing arrangements to exchange and settle transactions on a multilateral basis through designated master accounts held at the Reserve Banks.

All three services are collectively owned and operated by the Reserve Banks. The Wholesale Product Office, based at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, oversees these operations system-wide, while account executives at all 12 Reserve Banks provide customer support.

The account executives at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond strive to maintain and strengthen the Fed’s relationships with its Fedwire and National Settlement Service customers in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and most of West Virginia. In addition to promoting and selling services, they provide assistance and direction to financial institutions on a number of payments-related issues.